Greenpeace's North Pole Runner

Francesco Galanzino has run the Gobi Desert, the Atacama Desert, and the Sahara as a Greenpeace volunteer, to raise the alarm about Global Warming.

His latest endeavour: a 42 Km (26 mile) marathon at the North Pole. Francesco and fellow professional and amateur runners faced temperatures of -30°C, which meant they had to pause and thaw their eyelashes from time to time. (Click the picture for a bigger version and have a look at the frozen mascara he's wearing.)

Francesco arrived second and opened an "Energy Revolution" banner for Greenpeace on his arrival at the finish line.

This is the stuff that the Greenpeace spirit is made of: individuals willing to face any challenge to make a stand for our planet's future. Thanks, Francesco, for this inspiring statement. It's a great reminder of just how many ways we can each make a difference, whether we're doing the extraordinary by racing at the top of the world, or the ordinary by changing the light bulbs in our own homes. Common to both is the knowledge that the actions and choices and statements we make as individuals are what the future will be shaped by, and the belief that we can all, in whatever way, make a difference.

Another view.......
If the aim was truely to draw the attention of the masses to the issue of global warming, was travelling to four continents the right way to
achieve this.
Surely the energy cost (international flights, local transport etc) far outweighed the benefits that will be achieved by the small number of interested people who followed these four runs and do make a change?
I have nothing against someone running the four desserts, and infact would like to do it myself, but let's be clear about the reasons for doing these things.

What's honestly a better use of your time though? I mean, what a great thing to do. No matter what the actual rewards may or may not be. It's inspiring, it's motivating and it's showing us what we're not doing about things in our own lives. It's better than most of us, who might contribute some money to support incentives like this, but never do them ourselves. It's certainly better than all those millions who don't even think about what's going on. Nice work, man.

Dear all,
I only would tell you that I've my race CO2 Balance.
Briefly, I produced 10 tons CO2 during my 4 races but, only during 2006, I diverted more than 4.000 Tonne Urban waste from landfill by composting and I substitute 30 Tonne Chemical fertilizer with 1.600 Tonne High quality compost.
In terms of People that has been joint by our message, more than 5 Millions Italians knew news about us.
Anyway... thank you for your suggestions